


No Second Chances

by Stark_Revolution



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 09:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18635188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stark_Revolution/pseuds/Stark_Revolution
Summary: Prior to the Time Heist, Tony Stark records a second, private video intended solely for Steve Rogers.





	No Second Chances

For Pepper, Morgan, Happy, and Rhodey, Tony had ceremoniously left an Iron Man helmet equipped with a holographic recording stored on his private server. Friday knew to play it in the event that he did not return from his mission alive.

This, however, was separate entirely. A thumb drive: that was what Tony Stark left behind for Steve Rogers before embarking on his final journey. It had been left where Steve and only Steve would find it: jammed into the pages of a small, hard-backed sketch book in Rogers’ private quarters. It forced the cover to bulge. The footage contained on the drive was uploaded nowhere else, stored solely on the drive, and filmed on what would be considered an old camera by Stark standards. This was meant for the eyes of one man and one man only.

“Steve. If you’re watching this, I’m dead. Thanks for that, by the way. I love being dragged into shit post-retirement.”

On the screen, Tony paced the floor. He was in his personal quarters in the Avengers facility. He looked weary. Absently, he fiddled with the drawstring on his hoodie, and finally he threw himself into a bowl chair.

“I just… I don’t know. Time Heist. We’re insane, aren’t we?” Stark ran his hands through his hair and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “I can’t believe it’s come to this. I can’t believe I _let_ it come to this.” He lifted his head and stared into the camera, brown eyes filling with tears. “I had it, Steve. I had everything. Pepper, my sweet baby girl, Morgan…” He sniffed, nose twitching. “And now I’m here, out of retirement, doing this.”

He wrung his hands, stared at the floor. Silence settled over him for a moment, brief though it was.

“I left them a video, too.” He rose, left the frame, and returned holding an Iron Man helmet. He set it in his lap when he sat again, and drummed his fingers on its surface. “Not sure if it’s morbid or not. I mean, disembodied head? It was easier to talk to them while looking into Iron Man’s eyes. When I look at him, at… me…” Tony palmed the helmet and held it up, inspecting that golden face. “I believe I can do anything. It was easier to tell them it would be okay, even if I didn't come home.”

Carelessly, he threw the helmet aside. Off-screen, it landed in another chair. He swallowed hard.

“I don’t want to die, Steve. I want to go back to my lake house and forget all of this. I can’t, though. You know I can’t. Everyone knows I can’t. That’s why you all showed up on my step in the first place. You knew I couldn’t walk away from this once you put it in my head that I could fix it.” Stark leaned back and rubbed at his chest as though it were aching.

“You and I, we were finally figuring this out.” Tony shook his head. “It was starting to feel like we were on the right track. Friends. _Something_.”

Another prolonged silence came and went. Tony spun the ring on his finger.

“You know, Pepper and I almost didn’t get married because of you.” He laughed, but it was dry, bitter, a little melancholy. “After the snap, once Danvers brought me home, I kept running scenarios about how to undo it. I couldn’t come up with anything by myself. I said I was done, but I needed to really convince myself. I was stuck in my own head, playing it back. Pep wanted me to let it go, but I spent weeks obsessing. When I couldn’t figure out how to fix it, I got caught up on how I might have stopped it in the first place. I ran simulations. What if Bruce and Natasha had ended up together? What if Thor had been here sooner? What if Vision had lived? It kept coming up the same, so I kept going back further.”

Tony folded his hands together, weaving his own fingers together and placing the knot under his chin. His eyebrows knit and then he closed his eyes. His head tilted back and he sighed at the ceiling.

“I found a scenario where it never happened in the first place. A scenario where we were ready for Thanos. Where we stopped him.” Tony drew in a deep breath and then exhaled heavily, cheeks puffing.

“We got together in that scenario. You and I.” He looked at the ring on his finger again. “All those times Pepper tried to stop me from being me… instead of waiting for her to figure it out, I cracked and came to you because you know better than anyone what it’s like to be confined to the expectations of others. She walked in on me running that sim, and she and I fought. Man, did we fight. She didn’t know what I’d been doing, so when she walked in on a very convincing rendering of you and I having a … moment, well, it didn’t go well. She and I worked it out, obviously, but the whole thing stuck with me.”

He got up and resumed his pacing: in frame, out of frame. Too close to the lens, across the room. He spun the bowl chair around a few times. His voice was distant as he trekked around the space.

“There’s something about you, Steve. It was always so _infuriating_ when I couldn’t get you to see things my way. It made me crazy. Made me hate you. I don’t know, I don’t know,” Finally he dropped himself back into that chair and faced the camera. “I thought it was hate, anyway, but I was wrong. I watched that simulation. You and I, sitting around, laughing, holding hands, and I realized… I _realized_ that it wasn’t hate. I didn’t hate you. Hell, I didn’t even really resent you. I wanted your approval.”

Tony hung his head, wearing his defeat openly.

“Took me a while, but I put it together. Dad loved you. Put a few drinks in him and you were God. Steve this, Cap that. From the time I was a kid, I did absolutely everything I thought he wanted me to do because I figured sooner or later, I’d really impress him. I’d do something amazing and he’d get the same look on his face that he got when he talked about you—in that sweet spot before he got all sad and angry and abusive.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked into the camera.

“Then you happened. You came off the ice. I was face-to-face with the man my father all but worshipped, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t impress you. Not _really_.” Tony shrugged. “Suddenly it hit me: I wanted your approval. You had Dad’s approval, which meant that if you approved of me, indirectly, Dad would have approved of me because he approved of you.” Both of Tony’s hands rose to cover his face. “Some kind of Freudian Oedipal Hellscape from the nightmares of adult men everywhere, I know.” A deep groan followed. Tony slid down in the chair and dropped both of his arms.

“That’s not what I want now, by the way. I know we had our little heart-to-heart. Doing the team thing. But—” He straightened up and raised his index finger, frowning all the same. “—I keep going back to it. I keep wondering. I mean, don’t get me wrong: I am in love with my wife. Giving Morgan a good future is worth dying for, but I wonder now, staring down the barrel of my own mortality,” Stark leaned forward.

“Would you and I have worked? Could we have really saved the world before it came to this? The reason you always pissed me off was because I _wanted_ you. To hell with your approval and my weird daddy issues. I wanted _you_. I never said it. I wasn’t ready to deal with what that meant, and I had Pepper. Pepper Potts: the most amazing woman in the world who stood by me no matter what and put up with me when I didn’t have anyone else. And you. You never did let go of Peggy. Same way you never let go of Bucky. Figuring you out would have been a waste of time for us both.”

Stark’s expression relaxed finally, and he nodded.

“I’m not saying I love you. That would be insane; I never got to know you well enough to love you,” He chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “But I definitely love the idea that you and I could have been something. That we could have changed everything by making a life together. I wouldn’t undo my life with Pepper for anything, but… I figure, just in case I do actually die, I want you to know: if I could go back, if it would make a difference to our timeline, I’d do it. I’d go back and I’d charm the everliving hell out of you, and we’d save the world. Together.”

Tony got up then and moved close to the camera. His hand extended, hovering over the record button.

“Steve. If you get a second chance at being happy in this life, take it. Take it and run, and don’t look back.”

The video ended with a click. Tony was frozen in time, earthen eyes out of focus but burdened with the fate of the universe as he knew it. This was goodbye. For Tony Stark, there were no second chances.


End file.
